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Sword bayonets

The 18th century introduced the concept of the sword bayonet, a long-bladed weapon with a single- or double-edged blade that could also be used as a shortsword.

Its initial purpose was to ensure that riflemen could form an infantry square properly to fend off cavalry attacks when in ranks with musketmen, whose weapons were longer. A prime early example of a sword bayonet-fitted rifle is the Pattern 1800 Infantry Rifle, later known as the "Baker Rifle".

Sword bayonets were used by German Jagers in the 18th century. The hilt usually had quillons modified to accommodate the gun barrel and a hilt mechanism that enabled the bayonet to be attached to a bayonet lug.

A sword bayonet could be used in combat as a sidearm, when detached from the musket or rifle. When the bayonet was attached to the musket or rifle, it effectively turned all long guns into a spear or glaive, which made it suitable for both thrusting and cutting attacks.

While the British Army eventually discarded the sword bayonet, the socket bayonet survived the introduction of the rifled musket into British service in 1854. The new rifled musket copied the French locking ring system.

The new bayonet proved its worth at the Battle of Alma and the Battle of Inkerman during the Crimean War, where the Imperial Russian Army learned to fear it.

In the 1860s, European nations began to develop new bolt-action breechloading rifles (such as the Chassepot and Snider–Enfield) and sword bayonets suitable for mass production and used by police, pioneer, and engineer troops. Such cases include Danish naval cutlass bayonets adopting edged weapons designed for naval rifles like the Snider and Remington.

The decision to redesign the bayonet into a short sword was viewed by some as an acknowledgement of the decline in importance of the fixed bayonet as a weapon in the face of new advances in firearms technology. British magazine Punch wrote that "the committee, in recommending this new sword bayonet, appear to have had in view the fact that bayonets will henceforth be less frequently used than in former times as a weapon of offence and defence; they desired, therefore, to substitute an instrument of more general utility."

Multipurpose bayonets

One of these multipurpose designs was the 'sawback' bayonet, which incorporated saw teeth on the spine of the blade.

The sawback bayonet was intended for use as a general-purpose utility tool as well as a weapon; the teeth were meant to facilitate the cutting of wood for various defensive works such as barbed-wire posts, as well as for butchering livestock.

It was initially adopted by the German states in 1865; until the middle of WWI approximately 5% of every bayonet style was complemented with a sawback version, for example in Belgium in 1868, Great Britain in 1869 and Switzerland in 1878 (Switzerland introduced their last model in 1914).

The original sawback bayonets were typically of the heavy sword-type, they were issued to engineers, with to some extent the bayonet aspect being secondary to the "tool" aspect.

Later German sawbacks were more of a rank indicator than a functional saw. Generally, an average of 6% of all bayonets were sawbacks for non-commissioned officers. There were some exceptions, such as the kurzes Seitengewehr 1898 model, all of which were of the sawback design and meant for what was considered more prestigious units, such as machine gunners, telegraph troop and colonial troops.

The sawback proved relatively ineffective as a cutting tool, and was soon outmoded by improvements in military logistics and transportation; most nations dropped the sawback feature by the early 20th century.

The German army discontinued use of the sawback bayonet in 1917 after protests that the serrated blade caused unnecessarily severe wounds when used as a fixed bayonet.

The trowel or spade bayonet was another multipurpose design, intended for use both as an offensive weapon as well as a digging tool for excavating entrenchments.

In 1870, the US Army issued trowel bayonets to infantry regiments based on a design by Lieutenant-Colonel Edmund Rice, a US Army officer and Civil War veteran, which were manufactured by the Springfield Armory.

Besides its utility as both a fixed bayonet and a digging implement, the Rice trowel bayonet could be used to plaster log huts and stone chimneys for winter quarters; sharpened on one edge, it could cut tent poles and pins. Ten thousand were eventually issued, and the design saw service during the 1877 Nez Perce campaign. Rice was given leave in 1877 to demonstrate his trowel bayonet to several nations in Europe.

One infantry officer recommended it to the exclusion of all other designs, noting that "the entrenching [sic] tools of an army rarely get up to the front until the exigency for their use has passed." The Rice trowel bayonet was declared obsolete by the US Army in December 1881.

Bayonet charge

The development of the bayonet from the 17th century onwards led to the bayonet charge becoming the main infantry tactic throughout the 18th, 19th, and early 20th century. The British Army under Wolesley, the later Duke of Wellington, evolved its tactics to adopt the "Volley and Bayonet Charge" from the earlier "Highland Charge" tactic of Highland regiments under his command. These proto "fire and maneuver" tactics were first introduced to the British Army by the 42nd Highlanders (Black Watch) at Fontenoy in 1745 although, they had been used by their antecedents, (The Independent Highland Watch Companies) prior to that. As early as the 19th century, military scholars were already noting that most bayonet charges did not result in close combat. Instead, one side usually fled before actual bayonet fighting ensued. The act of fixing bayonets has been held to be primarily connected to morale, the making of a clear signal to friend and foe of a willingness to kill at close quarters.

The bayonet charge was above all a tool of shock. While charges were reasonably common in 18th and 19th century warfare, actual combat between formations with their bayonets was so rare as to be effectively nonexistent. Usually, a charge would only happen after a long exchange of gunfire, and one side would break and run before contact was actually made. Sir Charles Oman, nearing the end of his history of the Peninsular War (1807–1814) in which he had closely studied hundreds of battles and combats, only discovered a single example of, in his words, "one of the rarest things in the Peninsular War, a real hand-to-hand fight with the white weapon." Infantry melees were much more common in close country – towns, villages, earthworks and other terrain which reduced visibility to such ranges that hand-to-hand fighting was unavoidable. These melees, however, were not bayonet charges per se, as they were not executed or defended against by regular bodies of orderly infantry; rather, they were a chaotic series of individual combats where musket butts and fists were used alongside bayonets, swords, and polearms.

Modern usage

One use the Germans in World War II made of bayonets was to search for people in hiding. One person hiding in a house in the Netherlands wrote: "The Germans made lots of noise as they came upstairs, and they stabbed their bayonets into the wall. Then what we'd always feared actually happened: A bayonet went through the thin wallpaper above the closet, exposing the three people who were hiding there. 'Raus!' cried the Germans. 'Out!'".

During the Korean War, the French Battalion and Turkish Brigade used bayonet charges against enemy combatants. In 1951, United States Army officer Lewis L. Millett led soldiers of the US Army's 27th Infantry Regiment in capturing a machine gun position with bayonets. Historian S. L. A. Marshall described the attack as "the most complete bayonet charge by American troops since Cold Harbor". The location subsequently became known as Bayonet Hill. This was the last bayonet charge by the US Army. Millett was awarded the Medal of Honor.

On 23 October 1962, during the Sino-Indian War, 20 Indian soldiers led by Joginder Singh fixed bayonets and charged a force of 200 Chinese soldiers. While the charge would prove futile for Singh and his men, it initially threw the Chinese off guard and forced a retreat despite outnumbering them 10 to 1.

On 8 May 1970, National Guardsmen attacked student demonstrators with bayonets at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. The demonstrators were protesting the war in Vietnam and Cambodia, and the killing of four students at Kent State University. Eleven were injured, some seriously.

In 1982, the British Army mounted bayonet charges during the Falklands War, notably the 3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment during the Battle of Mount Longdon and the 2nd Battalion, Scots Guards during the final assault of Mount Tumbledown.

In 1995, during the Siege of Sarajevo, UN peacekeepers of the French 3rd Marine Infantry Regiment charged Serbian forces at the Battle of Vrbanja bridge. Actions led by the regiment allowed the UN peacekeepers to retreat from a threatened position. Two fatalities and seventeen wounded resulted.

During the Second Gulf War and the war in Afghanistan, British Army units mounted several bayonet charges. In 2004, at the Battle of Danny Boy in Iraq, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders charged mortar positions of the Mahdi Army. The ensuing hand-to-hand fighting resulted in an estimate of over 40 insurgents killed and 35 bodies collected and nine prisoners. Sergeant Brian Wood, of the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment, was awarded the Military Cross for his part in the battle.

In 2009, Lieutenant James Adamson of the Royal Regiment of Scotland was awarded the Military Cross for a bayonet charge while in Afghanistan. Adamson had run out of ammunition so he immediately charged a Taliban fighter with his bayonet.

Lance Corporal Sean Jones of The Princess of Wales's Regiment was awarded the Military Cross for his role in a 2011 bayonet charge.

"Reach" controversy

Prior to World War I, bayonet doctrine was largely founded upon the concept of "reach"; that is, a soldier's theoretical ability, by use of an extremely long rifle and fixed bayonet, to stab an enemy soldier without having to approach within reach of his opponent's blade. A combined length of rifle and bayonet longer than that of the enemy infantryman's rifle and attached bayonet, like the infantryman's pike of bygone days, was thought to impart a tactical advantage on the battlefield.

In 1886, the French army introduced a 52-centimetre-long (20.5 in) quadrangular épée spike for the bayonet of the Lebel Model 1886 rifle, the Épée-Baïonnette Modèle 1886, resulting in a rifle and bayonet with an overall length of six feet (1.8 m). Germany responded by introducing a long sword bayonet for the Model 1898 Mauser rifle, which had a 29-inch barrel. The bayonet, the Seitengewehr 98, had a 50 cm (19.7-inch) blade. With an overall length of 5 feet 9 inches (1.75 m), the German army's rifle/bayonet combination was second only to the French Lebel for overall 'reach'.

After 1900, Switzerland, Britain, and the United States adopted rifles with barrel lengths shorter than that of a rifled musket, but longer than that of a carbine. These were intended for general use by infantry and cavalry. The "reach" of the new short rifles with attached bayonets was reduced. Britain introduced the SMLE (Short, Magazine, Lee–Enfield), in 1904. The German M1898 Mauser rifle and attached sword bayonet was 20 cm (eight inches) longer than the SMLE and its P1903 bayonet, which used a twelve-inch (30 cm) blade. While the British P1903 and its similar predecessor, the P1888, was satisfactory in service, criticism soon arose regarding the shortened reach. One military writer of the day warned: "The German soldier has eight inches the better of the argument over the British soldier when it comes to crossing bayonets, and the extra eight inches easily turns the battle in favour of the longer, if both men are of equal skill."

In 1905, the German Army adopted a shortened 37-centimetre-long (14.5 in) bayonet, the Seitengewehr 98/05 for engineer and pioneer troops, and in 1908, a short rifle as well, the Karabiner Model 1898AZ, which was produced in limited quantities for the cavalry, artillery, and other specialist troops. However, the long-barreled 98 Mauser rifle remained in service as the primary infantry small arm. Moreover, German military authorities continued to promote the idea of outreaching one's opponent on the battlefield by means of a longer rifle/bayonet combination, a concept prominently featured in its infantry bayonet training doctrines. These included the throw point or extended thrust-and-lunge attack. Using this tactic, the German soldier dropped into a half-crouch, with the rifle and fixed bayonet held close to the body. In this position the soldier next propelled his rifle forward, then dropped the supporting hand while taking a step forward with the right foot, simultaneously thrusting out the right arm to full length with the extended rifle held in the grip of the right hand alone. With a maximum 'kill zone' of some eleven feet, the throw point bayonet attack gave an impressive increase in 'reach', and was later adopted by other military forces, including the U.S. Army.

In response to criticism over the reduced reach of the SMLE rifle and bayonet, British ordnance authorities introduced the P1907 bayonet in 1908, which had an elongated blade of some seventeen inches to compensate for the reduced overall length of the SMLE rifle. The 1907 bayonet was essentially a copy of the Japanese Type 30 bayonet, Britain having purchased a number of Japanese type 30 rifles for the Royal Navy during the preceding years. U.S. authorities in turn adopted a long (16-in. blade) bayonet for the M1903 Springfield short rifle, the M1905 bayonet; later, a long sword bayonet was also provided for the M1917 Enfield rifle.

Current deployments

The original AK-47 has an adequate but unremarkable bayonet. However, the AKM Type I bayonet (introduced in 1959) was an improvement of the original design.

It has a Bowie style (clip-point) blade with saw-teeth along the spine, and can be used as a multi-purpose survival knife and wire-cutter when combined with its steel scabbard.

The AK-74 bayonet 6Kh5 (introduced in 1983) represents a further refinement of the AKM bayonet. It introduced a radical blade cross-section, that has a flat milled on one side near the edge and a corresponding flat milled on the opposite side near the false edge.

The blade has a new spear point and an improved one-piece moulded plastic grip, making it a more effective fighting knife.

It also has saw-teeth on the false edge and the usual hole for use as a wire-cutter.

The wire cutting versions of the AK bayonets each have an electrically insulated handle and an electrically insulated part of the scabbard, so it can be used to cut an electrified wire.

The American M16 rifle used the M7 bayonet which is based on earlier designs such as the M4, M5 and M6 models, all of which are direct descendants of the M3 Fighting Knife and have a spear-point blade with a half sharpened secondary edge.

The newer M9 has a clip-point blade with saw-teeth along the spine, and can be used as a multi-purpose knife and wire-cutter when combined with its scabbard. It can even be used by troops to cut their way free through the relatively thin metal skin of a crashed helicopter or airplane.

The current USMC OKC-3S bayonet bears a resemblance to the Marines' iconic Ka-Bar fighting knife with serrations near the handle.

The Type 56 assault rifle includes the copy of an integral folding spike bayonet, similar to the SKS rifle or for some models, that of the AKM Type II bayonet. The QBZ-95, has a multi-purpose knife bayonet similar to the US M9.

The FN FAL has two types of bayonet. The first is a traditional spear point bayonet. The second is the Type C socket bayonet introduced in the 1960s.

It has a hollow handle that fits over the muzzle and slots that lined up with those on the FAL's 22 mm NATO-spec flash hider. Its spear-type blade is offset to the side of the handle to allow the bullet to pass beside the blade.

The current British L3A1 socket bayonet is based on the FN FAL Type C socket bayonet with a clip-point blade.

It has a hollow handle that fits over the SA80/L85 rifle's muzzle and slots that lined up with those on the flash eliminator. The blade is offset to the side of the handle to allow the bullet to pass beside the blade.

It can also be used as a multi-purpose knife and wire-cutter when combined with its scabbard. The scabbard also has a sharpening stone and folding saw blade.

The use of contemporary bayonets by the British army was noted during the Afghanistan war in 2004. Traditionally, bayonets are instead called swords in The Rifles.

The H&K G3 rifle uses two types of bayonets, both of which is mounted above the G3's rifle barrel.

The first is the standard G3 bayonet which has a blade similar to the American M7 bayonet.

The second is an Eickhorn KCB-70 type multi-purpose knife bayonet, featuring a clip-point with saw-back, a wire-cutter scabbard and a distinctive squared handgrip.

After the German reunification, there was little use of modified AKM type II knife bayonets from stocks of the former Nationale Volksarmee (National People's Army) of East Germany, for the H&K G36 rifle.

The original muzzle-ring was cut away and a new, large diameter muzzle ring welded in place. The original leather belt hanger was replaced by a complex web and plastic belt hanger designed to fit the West German load bearing equipment.

The Steyr AUG uses two types of bayonet. The first and most common is an Eickhorn KCB-70 type multi-purpose bayonet with an M16 bayonet type interface.

The second are the Glock Feldmesser 78 (Field Knife 78) and the Feldmesser 81 (Survival Knife 81), which can also be used as a bayonet, by engaging a socket in the pommel (covered by a plastic cap) into a bayonet adapter that can be fitted to the AUG rifle.

These bayonets are noteworthy, as they were meant to be used primarily as field or survival knives and use as a bayonet was a secondary consideration. They can also be used as throwing knives and have a built-in bottle opener in the crossguard.

The French use a more traditional spear point bayonet with the current FAMAS bayonet which is nearly identical to that of the M1949/56 bayonet.

The new French H&K 416F rifle uses the Eickhorn "SG 2000 WC-F", a multi-purpose combat knife/bayonet (similar to the KM2000) with a wire cutter.

It weighs 320 g (0.7 lb), is 30.0 cm (11.8 in) long with a half serrated 17.3 cm (6.8 in) blade for cutting through ropes. The synthetic handle and sheath have electrical insulation that protects up to 10,000 volts. The sheath also has a diamond blade sharpener.

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History

Plug bayonets

Socket bayonets

Sword bayonets

Multipurpose bayonets

Contemporary bayonets

Linguistic impact

Badges and insignias

Bayonet charge

Napoleonic wars

American Civil War

Going over the top

Banzai charges

Human wave attack

Modern usage

Usage

"Reach" controversy

Reversal in opinion

Current deployments

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